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Monthly Archives: July 2016

Although I can all through the year, this is the time where it can become all consuming and a full time job. If you aren’t in the throws of doing it, you are thinking about it and making plans.

Last week I finished stocking up my beef and chicken broths to make sure I had it on hand and now I’m going full tilt into the fresh local offerings and of course from our own garden. If I can’t can it, I freeze it.

So far I’ve got my strawberry jam done for the year and I just finished two batches of blueberry. I have three ten pound buckets of local cherries on order. 1/3 will become jam, 1/3 will become pie filling and the final third will be canned in alight syrup to be eaten straight out of the jar.

As I move through my canning I promise I will post and make pictures, even videos. I am learning this new software for my blog…so be patient with me. Old dogs can learn new tricks, but just a bit slower at times.

Fresh blueberry jam. Enough for the entire year.

I try to keep my canning and freezing to what we will use for the year. This year I did pretty good. I just ran out of green beans, I have one jar of corn left and only six quarts of tomatoes left. As a scratch cooker having only six jars of tomatoes is very little.

I use only safe recipes for my canning. Tested recipes and have learned that some things can be varied for personal taste, like with spices and flavourings of broths but that’s about it. You have to stay true to the tested recipe and method to keep your family and loved ones safe. I know that your grannies did it one way and ‘nobody died’ (as far as you know) but why take the chance. Botulism kills. When I was a child, I used to ride in my parents car laying in the back window. Nobody died, well at least not in my family. Today you wouldn’t even think of letting a child ride like that. It’s the same with canning. I don’t like vomiting. I don’t like diarrhea. And, I certainly do not want to kill anyone from botulism. Tested, safe recipes are the way to go. Bernardin, Ball or NCHFP (National Center for Home Preserving).

Stay safe and stay tuned. Thank you so much for checking out my blog. ~Leasa